Authors: Jovee Winters

Tags: #witches and wizards, #Paranormal Romance, #Mythology, #Greek Mythogy, #sexy fairy tales

The Magic Queen (22 page)

Balthazar gave her one final squeeze before slithering down her arm, and onto Jerrik’s shoulder. Lifting his tail, he gave her a wave goodbye.

If she didn’t turn around and leave now, she never would. So without another word, Baba moved as fast as her creaking, bowed legs allowed up the steps of her home and through the door. The moment she stepped through, her house lifted high on its chicken feet and began to trot away, knowing its mistress wished to be off.

Baba needed the house more for mobility than anything else, as she could barely move for long in this wretched body. Easing to a sitting position, she assembled all she would need to part the veil: a bowl half full of water, pig knuckles blanched in phoenix flame, and a thread of shadow from off Death’s cloak. Her brother hadn’t been overly fond of gifting her with such a valuable treasure, but Baba had her ways, even over Death.

“Veil of death part for me,” she whispered the first part of the incantation, throwing the bones into the bowl. Molten flames of magick curled and licked up against the ceiling, singeing the wood a charred black.

“I seek my lover, torn from me. So I say, so shall it be. Find him now.
So mote it be
!”

The moment she dipped the thread into the bowl, chaos erupted. The house shook and shrieked as it was caught up in the powerful swirl of magick. Baba clenched her teeth as she rolled around and around, her body slapping against one wall after the other, scrabbling for purchase where none could be found.

And then...they floated in utter and absolute darkness.

~*~

Freyr

He was dead, his life force separated from his body. Freyr lay in a field of blood and bones. Beside him rested the glowing blue souls of his brothers and sisters, all lost to the battle of Ragnorak. Thor was the first to rouse, shaking his head as he looked around a world between planes—not Hell, but not Valhalla either.

Freyr’s only thoughts were for Baba. For twenty years, he’d fought a battle he’d known from the start he could not win. But he’d satisfied the fates, and now, he was free. His soul would be measured, not for whether he’d been good or not, but whether he’d been warrior enough to enter into the gates of Valhalla to feast, dine, and wine for all eternity, to glory in the sumptuous feasts of lust and desire all the rest of his days. Once, that would have been enough for him.

But now he wanted more. He wanted everything.

He wanted his woman, his family.

“Odin!” Thor bellowed. “Hear us now! We fought the good fight, and we are ready to be rewarded!”

The angry whipping winds of the in-between tore the words from his lips, funneling them high into the sky toward the Allfather’s golden palace in the sky.

Thor, bruting, idiotic male that he was, laughed and bellowed, slapping a palm to his massive knee as his blond braids whipped in the wind behind him. For Thor, life had only ever been about the battle. Today was a day of great triumph for him, a culmination of his life’s ambition.

But for Freyr, all he felt was the cold agony of loss. Baba, he had no doubt, had tried as hard as she could to come. But even his powerful witch had been unable to breach the veil between death, life, and realms. He’d lost his family forever. The weight of sadness was as a vise squeezing his soul to shards.

“Freyr, my good man”—Thor grinned cockily—“why do you look so miserable? We have won. We have died with glory and honor. Now, we go onto far greater things.” He draped an arm around Freyr’s shoulder, side-hugging him roughly.

Freyr shoved him off. Thor was an imbecile. The stories often made him out to be a valiant hero, but he was little more than a juiced-up meathead with brains the size of a gnat. He thought only with two things: his cock and his hammer. Sadly, Freyr hadn’t been much different in his day.

“Get off me, you idiot,” he snapped, dusting off his bloody vestures.

Thor snorted. “Don’t worry, Freyr. I’ll make sure the Allfather tosses you scraps off my table when it comes ti—”

The bones beneath their feet shifted .and the world shrieked with a piercing whistle that made his ears ring and bleed.

Thor howled, shaking his hammer into the lightning strike. “Allfather, you’ve—”

A ramshackle house with chicken feet for legs fell as a sack of stone from out of thin air, landing with a loud crash scant inches from Thor’s side. Thor roared, hammer at the ready as he prepared to go on the warpath.

But Freyr scrabbled through the bones, pushing to his feet, as he raced with his heart in his throat toward the house that should have been demolished by the crash but still stood intact.

Thor made to throw his hammer, and Freyr jumped, spearing the blond idiot, knocking him down to the ground, and stealing the breath out of him.

“Touch a splinter of that place, and I’ll rip your balls off,” Freyr hissed, then slammed Thor back down as he shoved to his feet.

The door was tossed open, and out stepped his crone.

“Hag face,” he breathed in reverent awe.

And her milk-curdling face twisted into a horrific smile of iron-coated fangs.

“By the gods, it’s demon swine! What the devil is that thing?” Thor bellowed with revulsion and disbelief.

“All mine,” Freyr snapped then ran, taking the steps two at a time and wrapping his arms tight around the bag of bones he loved more than anything else in the entirety of creation.

She laughed with a sharp
oomph
, digging her bony fingers into his arms as she tried in vain to peel him off her.

“Can’t breathe,” she gasped happily.

He shook his head. “Breathing’s overrated, Baba.” With a hungry moan, he took her shriveled up lips and kissed her soundly.

“I’m going to be sick,” Thor groaned behind them.

And Freyr simply laughed because she’d done it. Somehow, someway, his sharp-tongued shrew had figured out a way to get to him. She wheezed when he finally let her go, clutching onto her bird chest. Her drooping breasts heaved up and down.

“Gods, woman, I could just eat you up.” He grinned. “You did it, Baba. You found me.”

Ugly as she was, when she smiled back at him, his heart radiated with warmth and love.

“I will always find you, Fellatio. Didn’t you know that?”

He tossed his head back, laughing almost maniacally, so indescribably happy that he literally shone with it. His soul—which was firm enough to hold her in this place—glowed a deep blue.

Reaching into her bag of tricks, Baba pulled out a vial, tipped it back, and drank from it. In seconds, the crone was no more. A rush of wind wrapped around her skeletal frame, transforming her back into the woman he’d fallen in love with what seemed like an eternity ago.

He’d forgotten all about Thor until the demigod gasped. “By Odin—”

Clutching onto Baba’s smooth, perfect hands, Freyr squeezed them and without taking his eyes off her smiling and radiant face, he said, “She’s mine. Lay a hand on her, Thor—”

“Yes. Yes, you’ll cut my balls off,” he snapped, “I’ve got it.”

And Baba laughed, the sound like the tinkling of bells. Hugging her tight, never wanting to let her go again, he whispered, “Take me home, woman.”

Nodding, she reached back into her bag and pulled out a vial that glowed with threads of purple and blue. He’d never seen that kind of magick before.

Brows furrowing, he touched the glass with his finger. “What is it?”

Smiling radiantly, she unstoppered the vial and lifting up on tiptoe, she poured it over his head. It smelled of honeysuckle and lilacs. It smelled of her.

“This is my soul and yours, entwined forever, our life forces joined one to another.”

As she spoke, he felt his body coil with tight bands of power, both dark and light. Just like her. Neither good, nor bad, she simply was. He inhaled deeply, smiling as he was bathed in her. He felt a tugging in his chest. Looking down, he noticed a tight silver band that extended from her to him.

And when he plucked at it, he heard music, a ballad so lovely and intoxicating that he felt slave to it. He would follow wherever it went, be whatever it needed, love only it...

She slid her hand along that band, joining her hands with his. “I feel you too. All over me. All you need to tell me now, Freyr is, are you ready to go home?”

He stepped so close into her no space existed between them.

“I want only to ever be with you, my Baba.”

Her smile was radiant. “Good answer.”

Taking his hand in hers, she led him back inside their home and sat, tugging him down with her. She crawled over onto his lap, wrapping her legs tight around his waist as she rested her head against his heart.

“Now hang on, Fellatio, because this is going to be a bumpy ride.”

But he only laughed because when was love ever anything else? “As long as I have my family, I don’t care where we go. Also, I was thinking now would be a good time to do that thing you did to the fairy queen all those years—”

She slammed a hand against his mouth and growled, “Never. Speak. Of. It.”

His brows waggled and she blushed. Then she laughed, and so did he.

And I’ll tell you a secret, dear friends. If you ever want to believe in the magic of true love, all you ever need to do is close your eyes and listen to the laughter that rides the winds and know that Freyr and his beloved Baba Yaga still live...

Happily...

Ever...

After.

~*~

Love my books? Want to know when the next Dark Queen book will be released? Make sure to sign up for my
newsletter
! And if you really want to get to know more about the queens and all the characters to come, come hang out at
The Harem
.

Author’s Notes

The next queen is coming soon, though it’s a mystery who she’ll be. If you want to know, stay tuned to either Jovee Winters’s
FB page
or sign up for her
newsletter
, which is probably the best way to keep up to date.

The next queens, in no particular order, are as follows:

The Centaur Queen

The Dark Queen (Fable’s Story)

The Fire Queen (Fiera’s Story)

The Fairy Queen (Baba Yaga’s story)

The Mesmerizing Queen (The Pied Piper’s Story)

And if you want to start at the beginning, make sure to pick up your copy of
The Sea Queen
!

About Jovee Winters

Jovee Winters is the pen name of a
NY Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author who loves books that make you think or feel something, preferably both. She’s also passionate about fairy tales, particularly twisting them up into a story you’ve never thought could be possible.

She's married to the love of her life, a sexy beast of a caveman who likes to refer to himself as Big Hunk. She has two awesome kids she likes to call Thing 1 and Thing 2, loves cooking, and occasionally has been known to crochet. She also really loves talking about herself in the third person.

Want more Kingdom?

Did you know I also wrote a slew of Kingdom tales featuring many popular characters such as The Mad Hatter, Robin Hood, and Captain Hook—to name a few. I wrote them as Marie Hall. Below you’ll find the complete listing for those stories.

Marie Hall Books

Kingdom Series (Fairy Tale Romance)

Her Mad Hatter (Free everywhere! Book 1, based on Alice and the Mad Hatter)

Gerard’s Beauty (Book 2, based on Beauty and the Beast)

Red and Her Wolf (Book 3, based on Little Red Riding Hood)

The Kingdom Collection (Books 1–3, with bonus deleted scenes)

Jinni’s Wish (Book 4, based on Arabian Nights)

Hook’s Pan (Book 5, Based on Peter Pan)

Danika’s Surprise (Book 5.5, novelette and first introduction to the upcoming Dark Princess Series)

Kingdom Chronicles (Books 4 & 5, and includes Danika’s Surprise)

Moon’s Flower (Book 6, based on the legend of the Man in the Moon)

Huntsman’s Prey (Book 7, spinoff Dark Princess Series)